Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

‘1)only for BNF code starting 2128

2) only for the first prescription issued to a patient who have never received a prescription for any of these items in any other time periods.

Could I also request the Practice ID from which the prescription originated?’

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 3 October 2024.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

Our response

Patients who have “never received a prescription”

Please note that our data does not show prescribing where a patient has “never” received such a prescription during their lifetime. For first prescribing, data is taken from all data held in the data warehouse, the first prescribing in the data warehouse for the described BNF sections with an identified patient is April 2015. Patients may have had prescribing prior to this but the data is not available prior to this point.

First prescribing since April 2015

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds this information, and a copy of the information is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

NHSBSA

NHS Prescription Services process prescriptions for Pharmacy Contractors, Appliance Contractors, Dispensing Doctors and Personal Administration with information then used to make payments to pharmacists and appliance contractors in England for prescriptions dispensed in primary care settings (other arrangements are in place for making payments to Dispensing Doctors and Personal Administration). This involves processing over 1 billion prescription items and payments totalling over £9 billion each year. The information gathered from this process is then used to provide information on costs and trends in prescribing in England and Wales to over 25,000 registered NHS and Department of Health and Social Care users.

Data Source

The data source was the NHSBSA Information Services Data Warehouse.

Exclusions

The Data excludes:

Items not dispensed, disallowed and those returned to the contractor for further clarification.

Prescriptions prescribed and dispensed in Prisons, Hospitals and Private prescriptions.

Items prescribed but not presented for dispensing or not submitted to NHS Prescription Services by the dispenser.

The request provides the practice code of any practice in which we can identify at least one patient receiving their first prescription of a product in BNF 2128 in the period August 2023 to July 2024.

We can only identify patients where the NHS number has been captured and this is only available from April 2015. Any prescriptions where we could not identify the patient were not included in the data.

Please note prescription data is held monthly, and it is possible that a patient could receive multiple prescriptions in the same month from different practices and in which case both practices would be included.

Time Period

Data from August 2023 to July 2024 inclusive.

Prescribing

The data provided is for prescriptions prescribed in GP practices in England

BNF

The data is limited to prescribing of products under BNF 2128 Anal Irrigation System.

BNF Code

The BNF Code is a 15 digit code in which the first seven digits are allocated according to the categories in the BNF and the last 8 digits represent the medicinal product, form, strength and the link to the generic equivalent product. NHS Prescription Services has created pseudo BNF chapters, which are not published, for items not included in BNF chapters 1 to 15. The majority of such items are dressings and appliances which NHS Prescription Services has classified into four pseudo BNF chapters (20 to 23).

Practice Code

The Organisation Data Service (ODS) code of the GP Practice.

Data Queries

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing, the data please contact foidata@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2024” Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.